Happosai (Continuum-32145896)
Happosai (八宝斎, Happōsai?) is the founder and grandmaster of Anything Goes Martial Arts, having taught Genma Saotome and Soun Tendo. The so-called “Most Evil Martial Arts Master in the World” known as much for his perversion was as his martial arts mastery. Appearance Happosai is a tiny man, about the same height as Cologne. He is completely bald except for some hair on the sides of his head and has a pencil-thin mustache. He wore a gi years before when training Soun and Genma, but now wears a two piece medium colored outfit. He also makes use of various disguises when needed and when on his underwear raids typically sports a traditional Japanese mask made from a folded tenugui. It is more a ceremonial disguise than an actually functional disguise, and is believed to have its roots in the now-discouraged practice of yobai or night-crawling. One of the common depictions of Happosai is wearing this mask and carrying a furoshiki laden with loot. Happosai’s curse form is quite passingly handsome. The image of what he always saw himself as a handsome bishonen with blond hair. History Young Happosai was a very small man of slight build, quite unpromising for a candidate who would go on to become the greatest martial arts master of our age, Cologne notwithstanding. He had been picked on mercilessly by the people of the village of his birth, so as a youth he fled his homeland to wander the world in search of knowledge. He thought if he could master the arts taught to him by his father in Okinawa he could return home one day in triumph. So it was he found himself in the lands of the Nyanchiczu, tired, hungry and exhausted, to collapse almost literally at the feet of a young warrior named Kho Lon. When Happosai came to live with Cologne she saw a side to him that few others even knew existed, the part that he keeps hidden in his own heart, the part of him that identifies with small and helpless things that need a protector. Cologne saw kindness and generosity where others saw only a warped little man with a twisted nature. It soon came to light that Happosai had a dark secret in that he had a strong love for…shall we say…improperly fondling and ogling at women? Being shunned by the women in his village, he compensated for the absence of feminine interest in his person by stealing trinkets and copping a feel towards any woman who came within grope range. Cologne was the only one he did not molest in such an improper manner, whereas it was the rejection of others that fueled his perverted obsessions. It is like the rest of his reprehensible conduct and generally selfish behavior, something to be justified on the grounds of his insecurity. In his mind he is neither a villain nor a victim but simply a man who does what he needs to do in order to satisfy his baser appetites. Of course this sort of self-justification and indulgence is the reasons why the Council of Elders banished him to the peripheral territory outside the village. Cologne spoke out on his behalf however and her word carried weight even in those days. Which is why his penalty wasn’t harsher. She was a young girl in love, and Happosai was kind to her as he was to no one else, just as she was the only one who showed him any kindness. Sadly he could not control his wicked compulsion to bother and molest the rest of our village and once he lost the good graces of his only protector it was the loss of his one chance to be redeemed. It was during this time that he met the demoness Ganglot and mad his wish to mecome the Most Evil Martial Arts Master in the World. After that he went on to a life of perversity far greater than merely stealing the treasures of the Amazons and leaving Cologne embittered and heartbroken. At first he was content to steal the undergarments of the women he coveted, if only to smell the scent of their bodies and thus feel closer to them than he could get in real life, but then he began to gain a lust for more personal objects of adornment. Like a magpie he started to covet the artifacts and objects of power that were created by the Lore Masters and Mages of many previous generations. Every house had its own object of power that was venerated by the daughters of the most prominent families of Amazon society. In Cologne’s case it was a mirror that can be used to transverse the boundaries of time, one she prized very much but was willing to sell to pay for the food Happosai stole from other members of the village. It had been the legacy of her mother, and when Happosai stole it from her, it was like stealing a piece of her heart which is probably why he took it. He left the lands of the Amazons with their artifacts in tow and began to wander the world in search of other young ladies that he could bother. It was around this time period that he befriended the nearly identical Rakkyosai, but stole his tablet of rainbow colored ink (used to create 'perfect' female breast prints), which presumably ended the friendship. In time he returned to Japan, already quite old yet greatly changed in essence, made almost immortal by his quest for personal power and glory. He was rather set in his ways and by then used to being misunderstood by others, but a curious thing happened one day some seventy or eighty years back when he was on one of his usual panty raids, cruising through the suburbs of then-modern Tokyo in search of new women to harass he met and fell in love with a woman who would become his one and only wife, a lady named Nanamiya Shinko. She bore him a daughter who went on to become Ranma Saotome great grandmother. Shinko was a very unusual woman, a widow to be precise. Her husband was a soldier who took part in one of Japan’s early military forays onto the mainland, years before hostilities broke out in Manchuria and the Empire began its aggressive expansion. Shinko was a young and lovely thing who felt incredibly lonely and had a widow’s pension as her staple source of income. She was bored and in search of diversion when Happosai came into her life and gave her all the excitement that she was craving. It was because his perversity appealed to her that Shinko became interested in him in the first place. He brought excitement into her life, and she—in turn—gave him something new in his experience…a woman who did not run away from him, who accepted him for what he was and wasn’t out to change or remake him for the better. It wasn’t an easy courtship by any measure…at first Happosai could not accept her love as genuine, even after she began joining him in his nocturnal raids, defying conventions for a woman of her station by acting like a sorority prankster. In time she finally won the old Master over and Happosai did come to accept her. Unfortunately such happiness does not last forever, and when the war came Shinko became a casualty in an allied bombing raid. Happosai was devastated and found himself alone once again with a teenaged daughter to care for, which was more responsibility than he was prepared to handle. Nanamiya Junko, a precocious sprite who took a lot after her father. She was the apple of the Master’s eye, and against his wishes she learned the martial arts that she would pass along to her son after she met her husband, Saotome Shiryo, a man of ancient Samurai stock and a firm believer in the old traditions of Bushido. They had several children, among whom was Saotome Kurima, who in turn was the father to Genma and his older brother, Honima. The "training" that he put Soun and Genma through, was cleaning up his messes, having to "take the fall" for him, and basically making life a living hell for the two. However, one day they finally managed to get away from Happosai's control. While the latter was passed out drunk from the sake that they brought to him, Soun and Genma trapped Happosai inside a box with lit dynamite, threw it into a cave, rolled a boulder over the entrance, and sealed it with fastened ofuda spirit wards. Thinking they were finally free of the old lech, Soun and Genma left to continue their practice. After many years, Happosai managed to escape from his prison and made his way to the Tendo dojo. Fearing that he was out for revenge, Soun and Genma immediately tried to kill him, but after being instantly and effortlessly defeated they groveled before him. Even though he is a massive pest, Genma and Soun don't always have the backbone to stand up to him, especially not close to his introduction, and tried to force Ranma Saotome to apologize for helping to return his stolen underwear to its rightful owners. When Happosai found out about how Cologne lied to Shampoo about Lotion the Younger’s demise he decided to reason with her. Naturally this caused a fight that led them back to the dojo where Happosai threw one of the bottles Ukyo brought into her face. Upon realizing that the bottles were full of Jusenkyo water he drank its contents before anyone could stop him turning himself into a blond haired pretty boy. Now that he realized that she had fooled him with her disguise all these years Happosai tried to get back into Cologne’s good graces by giving her back one of the treasures he stole from her. In this case a golden bracelet with three pearls a given to her by the Archmage Siren. However upon realizing what it was he tried to use it on her to make her his love slave, however Hinako ended up swallowing it instead. Philosophy Happosai believes that adversity challenges one to tap into their latent potential. The more harsh the adversity the greater the effort that is made by a martial artist trying to stay alive and conquer the odds. That is why he forced your fSoun and Genma to suffer those trials that broke down their wills and badly tarnished their honor. It doesn’t matter if this training makes one a social pariah, all that matters is the training itself and the will to fight. Abilities As the founder and grandmaster of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, Happosai is by all appearances in sum total easily the, to an extreme degree, most formidable character in the entire series, due to the combination of completely overshadowing the combat skills of any other displayed martial artists, with the exception of Cologne, and also being one of the characters with by far greatest displayed amounts of raw power along with Saffron and possibly the Eight Headed Orochi. There is no indication of the limits of Happosai's prowess and knowledge, which includes ancient martial arts techniques, near-forgotten pressure points on a human body, recipes for alchemical concoctions with various effects, and knowledge of many Chinese and Japanese magical artifacts. Happosai is able to adapt to new situations in combat and is proficient enough to quickly create new techniques to counter moves used against him. He has personally trained Soun and Genma, who are both strong fighters in their own right. He also taught Hinako Ninomiya the unique ability to drain the auras of others, using a combination of pressure points to change her metabolism and partial martial art exercises. He has effortlessly defeated Ranma, Ryoga, Genma and Soun simultaneously, within seconds, without even using his skyscraper-sized battle aura or any other special techniques. Happosai actually had promising skill as a Lore Master. He could have been the greatest, but he failed the test of character and his gift was wasted. This is one of the reason’s he was able to survive being locked in a cave for years without food or water. Human limits do not apply to a Lore Master as they sets his or her own limitations. Besides which, Happosai is not strictly within the definition of entirely human. His quest for power and greatness extended his life far beyond all so-called ‘natural’ limits, and it is not for nothing that he is referred to as the ‘Demon’ Master.” Happosai can very quickly recover from severe damage or beatings, frequently within a few seconds. This includes surviving being blown up with a 5m diameter version of his own bombs. He was likewise able to endure without sustenance when buried inside a cave for over 10 years, and was no worse for the wear after the Shinto seal keeping him there was destroyed. As a flipside of this, Happosai's main weaknesses are that he is seldom remotely serious and is easily distracted by lingerie and pretty women, being quite easily handled through sucker-attacks in this manner. Essentially, although he could theoretically possibly match all the other most formidable characters in the series ganging up on him if he actually used his combination of abilities to their fullest potential, virtually anybody can take him out by showing some attractive female cleavage and then bash him with a massive mallet. Regardless, Happosai cannot be taken lightly. The cursed water he drank had an unforeseen side effect upon Happosai. Due to the wish granted to him by the Demoness, Ganglot that made him the reputedly Most Evil Martial Arts Master in the world. Ganglot made a deal with Happy to make him the most powerful fighter of his generation. That's why even Cologne can't beat him. Plus the fact he's possessed by this spirit that helps keep him around a lot longer than most mortals. While he is in his curse form that contract is negated, so while his skills remain formidable, he is no longer invincible. Category:(Continuum-32145896)